The Deaf Coach, a supernatural coach that passes people’s houses at certain times of the year (such as Hallowe’en), is a common enough archetype in Irish folklore.

In this telling, Joe says that you can both hear and see it coming. Both the horses and the two men driving them are headless. Inside the coach is a man with the head of a billy-goat. This character holds a big quart of blood in his paw-like hands. If he sees an open door he throws the blood in through it, causing everyone in the house to die within nine months.

Joe refers to turnips and cabbages being thrown at doors (he does not specify who throws them), which he says is a warning to people that the púca is on the way. ‘The púca’, in this case, probably refers to the man with the head of a goat. In other tellings (see Deaf Coach, The (2)) Joe specifies from the outset that the coach is carrying a púca.